Crystal ash
by PSjetaime
Summary: Darkness and ice is all you can find in Azkaban. Sirius let them wrap his heart, let them be his worst torment and his best allies.


**Trigger warning: dark themes, hints at suicide**

* * *

 _Just looking for a new direction_  
 _In an old familiar way_

 _Keep feeling fascination_  
 _Passion burning_  
 _Love so strong_  
 _Keep feeling fascination_  
 _Looking, learning_  
 _Moving on_

 _No meaning left to hold_

(Keep Feeling) Fascination — The Human League

* * *

Forgetting is an art form. That's what he has learned in his life; forgetting is an art form, gritting your teeth a talent, and moving on a virtue.

Forsaking and leaving everything behind himself, and keeping going; that's the key. Without a second thought, without acknowledging the fact that you may in fact be losing some precious things—included yourself—in the process, for if you do, you're lost; you won't be able to let go.

Squirming and squinting to count the stars out of his dark, little cell is not the right way, Sirius knows. It lights melancholy and nostalgia that he wants to cling to with all he has, which is not much anyway. As if seeing something shiny could help you pretend—believe—there's more to this life. As if sitting and thinking could get you to hope, convince you there's something worth living and dying for.

He already did that, put his own heart at stake, only to see ashes returned to him instead of it. He has no wish to do that again.

.

 _"Prongs—" he whispers. "Prongs, I—"_

 _James' hand, as pale as his face, lays at his side, open, almost inviting, but Sirius doesn't dare hold it. He figures it may still be warm, but he's not going to discover it. If it is even remotely cool, it could destroy him. James has always been meant to be warm. He digs his fingernails in his palm and swallows, the words trapped, wrapped around his dry tongue. "I'm sorry," he says, pointlessly. "I—I just wish I could—" The lump in his throat gets bigger and more painful. "—wish you could forgive me."_

 _It's not the first time he has to say he's sorry, but James lays there, dead, because of Sirius' own fault, and the words seem to disappear as soon as they reach his lips._

 _Prongs still doesn't move, doesn't smile encouragingly as he used to, doesn't help in any way. Sirius understands; who would help their murderer?_

 _A green flash and it was over—it would be over. Sirius's tightens his grip on his wand. It seems so easy. And it's not that he doesn't have enough bad feelings and self-hatred to cast an Unforgivable, the bitter awareness of an irrevocable mistake feeding those._

.

Watching the stars twinkling, he thinks to remember how warmth felt, remember he was warm himself, burning with a passion as ardent as the midday sun. Sirius is almost tempted to like that; as dangerous as it may be to nourish something the Dementors could taint and destroy him in a breath, a part of him prompts him to let the feeling grow and consume him, melt him, boil him…

Sirius almost feels devoured by cozy flames, and for a moment it feels safe, welcoming, comforting. For the briefest moment, everything seems to make sense again. Sirius knows he could burn like that again—

.

 _The mask he's always worn to repress and dominate each and any emotion is broken. Sirius could only spot the rest of it on the floor, black against the variegated pattern of the marble. He looks up, his eyes wide open and shocked._

 _But James is smiling. Keeps smiling._

 _It isn't Regulus' fearful smile. It isn't a child's naive smile. It isn't a old man's quiet smile either._

 _It's an understanding one, a friendly one. For him, a Black._

 _It's warm and penetrating, and it's reached Sirius' heart, the same heart he tried to forget and ignore after his mother had cracked it for the first time. Apparently, it's still alive, and so is he, and he wants to try to keep it like that._

 _The mask is broken, and Sirius' smile was free._

 _He could learn to love and be loved._

 _._

—if he'd let himself.

But he won't.

He can't afford it.

This moment will soon be gone—as the previous ones did—and the ghosts will be back, the haunting spirits of the people he's hurt, the happy family _he_ 's killed.

He's already turned to the light, the fire, and _it_ failed him. _He_ failed it. That has to be why it avoids him now. That's why he's here, in this glacial space where the ice around his heart and soul has grown as thick as the walls.

He brings his cold palm to his face and lips, pressing it where he most likely received kisses—he doesn't remember those, but he knows of them because the skin still burns—and that awkward sensation is immediately gone, replaced by unpleasant, sore memories.

.

 _"You're a Black, Sirius. You'll be what you need to be. There aren't many pureblood families left, and the ones to really deserve that honor are even less."_

 _._

There's something in that line that sounds truer than ever. Maybe, maybe they knew what they were talking about. No one of them ever let his heart be ripped, and Sirius? Sirius threw it away himself.

.

 _The rough push makes him stumble forward as the squeaky door closes behind him, the sound heavy and final. It won't open again, Sirius knows, but that thought is irrelevant at the moment. Prongs, Lily, Harry… all dead. Because of him._

 _._

The knees hugged to his chest, Sirius leans against the cold wall, his eyes closed, his mind far away.

He brings a trembling hand to his face; the tears he's been shedding are still there, solidified against his skin, icicles of pain. Sirius picks one between his thumb and his forefinger—it's surprisingly easy considering his fingers are too frozen to properly work. Shivering, he stares at it and lets himself drown in that steel blue grain, all his energies drained, feeling that little, seemingly innocent, frozen tear is his sentence.

To pain.

To ice.

To a past without a future.

To darkness.

* * *

 **Written for the Practice Round on the QLFC:** **80s Throwback**

 **Chaser 1's task: (Keep Feeling) Fascination — The Human League**

 **Team: Appleby Arrows**

 **Optional Prompts: [word] Bitter, [location] Azkaban, [colour] Steel Blue**

 **Word count: 957**


End file.
